A former Easton woman police officer and one now in the department told Easton City Council last night of multiple incidents of sexual harassment they faced from Lt. Charles Otranto and other officers.

Another lieutenant, John Mazzeo, described the hostility that existed between the 4 p.m. to midnight and midnight to 8 a.m. shifts, mostly because of Otranto's leadership.

FOR THE RECORD - (Published Friday, July 26, 1996) The woman officer testifying at the dismissal hearing for Lt. Charles Otranto in Easton is Jean Dubbs. Her name was incorrect in an article in some editions yesterday.

The witnesses made the charges during the second night of hearings for Otranto who, with Sgt. Gregory Paglianite, has been charged with misconduct in the police department. The city is seeking their dismissal from the force. Both officers have been suspended without pay since April 19. Paglianite will have a separate hearing later this summer.

Both Jean Dove, hired in July 1989 and now in Lehigh University's security department, and Patrolwoman Darlene Stauffer said they endured the harassment and demeaning remarks because they were afraid of increased derogatory treatment and possibly losing their jobs.

Dove, who left the department after 15 months, said Otranto made it clear to her she was not wanted on the shift. In just one example, she said, while on foot patrol in Centre Square, Otranto told her not to get in the way.

"There were times when he would not speak to me," she said. "And he would not answer my questions."

One time while on her beat, she said, she encountered "a large male who was screaming and cursing." She said she requested Otranto come to the location, but he would not come, nor did he tell her what to do or send backup.

Like those who testified Wednesday, she and Stauffer said they had witnessed Otranto asleep in his patrol vehicle several times.

Dove said one time she spotted him in his vehicle and wanted to get his advice on a report she was working on. She said she found him asleep and the car's motor running and lights on. "I sat there a few minutes and left," she said. "I was more afraid of his finding out that I knew he was sleeping." The next morning, she said, he yelled at her about the report.

She said after a night of covering street fights, Otranto told her she was not doing her job and he would have her suspended. She said he also told her he did not want to hear anything more of sexual harassment.

At a meeting about the incident with then Police Chief John Border, Director of Public Safety Skip Fairchild and Otranto and Paglianite, Dove said Otranto denied he waved her away from covering a street fight and instead accused her of trying to hide. She urged the police tapes be played, which she said would show she called Sgt. Paglianite, but was told the tape machine was broken that night.

After that meeting, Dove said she decided to resign. "I felt there would be no let up and I was a little afraid of my life not knowing if I was going to be left alone in a bad situation," she said.

When questioned by Otranto's attorney, John Rengert of Harrisburg, Dove said she did not call the dispatcher for help on the occasions she mentioned, but rather her supervisor because she did not have the experience of knowing where to turn at that time.

Stauffer, who has been on the force for seven years, said she wrote a 28-page report of the sexist and sexual harassment she has endured on the job. The report was made on now Police Chief Carl Beers' request after an investigation was begun earlier this year about the possible misconduct of Otranto and Paglianite.

She said she felt that Otranto had a definite problem with women in police work. She based this on the way she said she was treated, things alluded to and things that happened to her on the force.

When she first joined the force in 1989, she said, it was not long before rumors started that she was having an affair with officer Steven Homoki. She said the situation "got to be intolerable" and at one point someone sent her husband an unsigned letter on the alleged affair.

She said she went to Otranto and told him she had enough of the rumors. He told her to keep it to herself and he would look into it, she said.

Stauffer said Otranto said because she was attractive she should expect such things.

She said she felt constantly that Otranto was looking for her to make mistakes and when she expressed interest in doing crime prevention work, he demeaned the Block Watch programs and the people involved in them.

After Stauffer was interviewed for a newspaper article on women in police work, a paragraph in the story on her feelings about the job was blown up and pasted all over the police department.

Stauffer said she did not find the comments Otranto made humorous, but meant to be cruel.

Lt. John Mazzeo told how his once close friendship with Otranto had diminished when both were serving as lieutenants of shifts. He said there was no communication between the shifts, a fact that hindered good police work.

The hearings lasted more than four hours last night and will resume in mid-August.